Posts: 9

Topic: Introduction

Hi, my name is Marian. I live in Kuala Lumpur with my husband who was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma in Sept 2005. He underwent surgery the next month. After being diagnosed cancer free for about 6 months, the cancer recurred at the remaining lobe of the liver. Since then he has undergone about 7 chemotherapy regimes including two oral ones. It is too long to list the chemotherapy drugs he received (each with varying but short term effect) but would gladly reply to any queries. He has also tried Chinese traditional medicine. In November last year he underwent TACE and last month he received HIFU treatment, for which he is still recuperating from its side effects.

Re: Introduction

Hello Marian, and welcome to the boards. KL is a wonderful city, I've actually been there twice!

I would be very interested to hear a little more about the different chemo treatments your husband has received, since I will probably be making decisions soon about that. I was diagnosed with a recurrence in 2006, and it stayed stable after radiation until now, but it has started growing again. Which treatments had the best effect? How easily did he tolerate them?

Thanks for anything you feel like sharing! And best wishes to both of you.

Re: Introduction

Hello Marian, your husband and you went through quite some difficult times. I hope the new and alternative treatments help. What also help is a good healthy eating pattern. To keep it short that is allmost all vegetables, all fruits - but especially the smaller ones and fish at least twice a week. Absolutely no sugar, as cancer cells use sugar for their growth. I hope you can keep your husband a long time. All the best,Iris.

Re: Introduction

Dear Kristin

Thanks for your reply. Most of the chemotherapy my husband received were administered intravenously. He started with a combination of Carboplatin and Gemcitabine. That gave him a remission of about 3-4 months. The next regime was Gemcitabine and Oxaliplatin which gave him about 2 months remission. Then he moved on to CPT 11 and Capecitabine (an oral drug). As the tests did not show any effectivity, Cetuximab was added. But that did not work out. So he tried oral chemotherapy. Tarceva gave him severe skin reaction on the face that this had to be stopped after two weeks. His facial skin peeled continuously. He moved back to intravenous chemo using a combination of Cisplatin, Gemcitabine and Avastin. As this hardly deterred the tumour from growing, he tried another oral drug, this time Sorafenib. Less than a week of taking this oral drug, he had swellings on the soles of his feet which made walking quite difficult. My husband's reaction is not the norm when it comes to oral drugs. Different people would react to the same set of drugs differently. He tolerated the intravenous drugs better.

I do hope you will be able to make the right choices for your treatment. If you have any more queries feel free to ask.

Kristin wrote:

Hello Marian, and welcome to the boards. KL is a wonderful city, I've actually been there twice!

I would be very interested to hear a little more about the different chemo treatments your husband has received, since I will probably be making decisions soon about that. I was diagnosed with a recurrence in 2006, and it stayed stable after radiation until now, but it has started growing again. Which treatments had the best effect? How easily did he tolerate them?

Thanks for anything you feel like sharing! And best wishes to both of you.

Re: Introduction

Re: Introduction

Kris, hoping for your husband to be recuperating from the HIFU, with great results coming your way. It would be wonderful as it seems to be rather non-invasive with promising results in prostate cancer patients for which it has been approved in the US.Sending my best wishes all the way to Kuala Lumpur.Marion

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